On Friday morning, CNBC anchor (and man who knows better than Ray Dalio) Joe Kernen conducted a very “compelling” interview with the only person in the world who takes Peter Navarro seriously: Peter Navarro.

The last time we checked in on Peter, his angry visage had materialized on CNN to explain why rate cuts are still desirable despite a scorching-hot June jobs report. That was on July 5.

A couple of days previous, Navarro told CNBC what “has to happen” to get the Dow to 30,000 “and above”. It won’t surprise you to discover that Fed rate cuts made Peter’s list.

In any event, Peter’s Friday CNBC cameo was predictably silly. At one point, Kernen said “I wish we had as much time as we could possibly have with you”. Navarro looked confused. Presumably, nobody has ever expressed a desire to spend an open-ended amount of time talking to Peter about anything.

The highlight came when Navarro called the Wall Street Journal’s reporting “garbage” and likened the paper to the People’s Daily, a bizarre thing to say considering the Journal’s generally pro-Trump bent.

“There’s just going to be a lot of garbage coming out of the Wall Street Journal and the People’s Daily and everything in between”, he said. “I’ve seen this movie before”. Here’s Friday’s “movie”:

(If the video does not load, please refresh your page)

He continued, insisting that, during previous rounds of negotiations, “all sorts of stories [were] written and they were designed to shape the negotiations”. As CNBC dryly notes, “Navarro didn’t discuss any specific stories or present any evidence to back up his point”.

The Journal says they stand by their reporting.

Multiple reports this week indicated that China has not yet made good on a commitment Trump claims was either implicit or explicit in the Osaka handshake deal with Xi, regarding purchases of US farm goods.

If you want Navarro’s advice (and I don’t know why you would), he says investors shouldn’t “believe anything you read in either the Chinese or the US press about these negotiations unless it comes from the mouth of either the president or advisor Lighthizer”.

Ok, Peter, fair enough. How about this, then?:

Mexico is doing great at the Border, but China is letting us down in that they have not been buying the agricultural products from our great Farmers that they said they would. Hopefully they will start soon!

Joe Kernen is a brilliant thinker. Now my memory may be faulty, but I recall him saying that laid off factory workers should simply change careers and start writing iPhone apps in the spirit of the “creative destruction” inherent in capitalism.

Joe Kernan interviewed the finance minister of Ireland and could not believe Ireland used the Euro and was part of the EU. The finance minister told him that and you could tell was astonished that Joe did not know, since he told Joe Ireland had been using the Euro for something like 10 years at the time of the interview. Lets face it Joe is not going to win any IQ contests.